The
gap between facts on the ground and Mideast coverage in many mainstream US
media is harmful to US public interest. The fruits of Israeli militarism
in the past two weeks included over 500 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians
killed (including entire families), 20% of Lebanese civilians displaced,
over $4 billion of Lebanese civilian infrastructure destroyed, and whole
neighborhoods flattened by US-supplied weapons. The Israeli army (already
4th or 5th strongest in the world) will see its budget increased by nearly
$500 million and the US is rushing delivery of aviation fuels, bombs and
munitions all funded buy the US taxpayer. Meanwhile, 1/3rd of Israeli
children and 2/3rds of Palestinians live below the poverty line. Yet, many
TV and newspapers simply regurgitate lies generated in Tel Aviv and
parroted by a well-funded network of lobbyists for Israel in the media, on
Capital Hill, and in the White House.

The fictional narrative goes something along
the lines that “the troubles started” when Hamas “abducted” an Israeli
soldier and Hezbollah “kidnapped’ two Israeli soldiers. As to why this
happened, it is argued that Hamas and Hezbollah are fanatical terrorist
groups genetically predestined to make trouble unless crushed by massive
military force. But Israel is a colonial and occupying state that has left
2/3rd of the 9 million Palestinians as refugees or displaced people by a
systematic process of ethnic cleansing, land grabs, and attacks on
civilians, all perpetrated well before the establishment of Hamas (acronym
for Islamic Resistance Mo0vement) in 1987. In fact, the first suicide
bombing came only in the mid 1990s after the massacre by an Israeli
settler of 29 worshippers in the Ibrahimi mosque in Alkhalil (Hebron).

The Israeli government (backed by the US)
responded to the massacre not by punishing the colonial settlers but by
rewarding them and punishing the native Palestinians (clearing whole
Palestinian neighborhoods to satisfy the few settlers). In our visit to
that ancient city two weeks ago, we observed how 400 fanatical colonial
settlers (supported by nearly 4000 Israeli occupation troops in the area)
have displaced thousands of native Hebronites and kept nearly a hundred
thousand as virtual prisoners. Hamas skirmished with the occupation forces
resulted in the capture of an Israeli occupation soldier, an act of
resistance supported by all existing International laws (Gaza is still
occupied, even by UN standards). By contrast, nearly 10,000 Palestinian
political prisoners are held illegally in Israeli jails. They were
kidnapped from their own homes and towns and illegally transported to
Israeli jails.

Similarly, Hezbollah is an indigenous
Lebanese resistance force that formed AFTER the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon. For those with short memories, it is important to recall that
tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians (the latter refugees from
1948) were massacred by the Israeli occupation forces and their proxies in
Lebanon in 1982 alone. Hezbollah earned wide popularity and support among
all sectors of Lebanese society (including its Christian population) for
its success in ousting the Israeli brutal occupation machine from most
Lebanese territory. Of course Israel remains illegally occupying Gaza, the
West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Sheba Farms, and the Golan.
Israel also continues to deny International law by preventing Palestinian
refugees from returning to their homes and lands. All Arab countries
agreed in Beirut three years ago to a comprehensive peace plan based on
International law. As JFK rightly pointed out "If we make peaceful
revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable."

Why does the US government refuse to call on
its client state to accept a ceasefire in Lebanon let alone peace based on
International law? Why does the US veto UN resolutions critical of Israel
even when the vast majority of countries support such resolutions? The
reaction to a paper on the Israeli lobby by two respected professors at
Harvard and University of Chicago (Mearsheimer and Walt) should give us
hints. There was a paranoid overreaction about this research simply
because it showed that Zionists push their interests at the expense of US
interests.

Hundreds of millions around the world look
in horror at the US complicity in Israeli war crimes. Campaigns of
boycotts, divestments and sanctions on Israel by civil society are now
picking steam. Unless the US government changes course and accepts
applicability of human rights and International law, US economic interests
around the world would also be effected and we may be embarking on a
perpetual war in which everyone loses.

Mazin Qumsiyeh,
PhD is US citizen who just returned from occupied Palestine and is a
member of the steering Committee of the US Campaign to End the Occupation
(endtheoccupation.org). Visit
his website:
www.qumsiyeh.org.